Accessibility
& BaFG

Since 28 June 2025 the Austrian Barrierefreiheitsgesetz requires covered digital services to meet WCAG 2.1 level AA. We tested 253 Austrian websites. Nine in ten do not.

90.9%of the 253 Austrian sites we tested had at least one WCAG 2.1 AA failure
28.06.25the law has been in force since this date — the deadline has passed
€80,000maximum administrative penalty for large companies

What the law asks for

The Barrierefreiheitsgesetz implements the European Accessibility Act in Austria. It covers services sold to consumers online: web shops and any e-commerce, hotel and travel booking, online banking, telecoms and messaging, e-books, and ticketing in passenger transport.

One part is routinely missed: online appointment booking is covered even when the underlying service is not. A clinic, a studio or a workshop that takes bookings through its website falls in scope regardless of what it actually sells.

The technical standard is WCAG 2.1 level AA, referenced through EN 301 549. Companies below both 10 employees and €2 million are exempt as micro-enterprises.

What we found in Austria

Rather than quote someone else's statistic, we ran our own study in September 2026: three segments, 318 sites, 253 usable measurements. 230 of them — 90.9% — had at least one WCAG 2.1 AA failure. The shop segment was deliberately the best case on the market, and the pharmacy segment was not a sample at all but the complete official register.

Read the full study — segments, method, what we discarded and why, and the failure-by-failure breakdown.

Read that number as a floor. Automated testing detects roughly 20–50% of accessibility problems, and we tested one page per site. The real picture is worse.
02How to start

Four ways in

Start where it makes sense. The cost of an audit is credited against implementation if you carry on with us.

Step 0 — free

Quick check

An automated pass over your site and a plain answer on the scale of the problem.

  • Automated scan
  • Rough count of failures
  • Whether the law applies to you
No cost
Step 1

Audit

Automated and manual testing, then a report you can hand straight to a developer.

  • Keyboard, focus order, screen reader, forms
  • Every failure with screenshot, element and WCAG criterion
  • Hour estimate per fix
  • Prioritised by effort against risk
Fixed price · fixed turnaround
Step 2

Guideline

For teams who will do the work themselves and want to stop reintroducing the same problems.

  • Everything in the audit
  • Component-level specification
  • Colour palette with verified contrast pairs
  • Acceptance criteria for your developers
  • Handover session
On request
Step 3

Implementation

We fix it, re-test, and you publish an accessibility statement that is actually true.

  • Remediation by our developers
  • Re-audit afterwards
  • Accessibility statement drafted
  • Optional annual re-check
Scoped after the audit
Talk to us about an audit

How we test

Automated. axe-core against the WCAG 2.1 A and AA rule sets — the same standard the law points to. We deliberately exclude best-practice rules, because inflating the number would not help you.

Manual. Keyboard-only operation end to end, visible focus order, screen reader behaviour, form labels and error messages, contrast of every colour pair in your palette, and behaviour under reduced-motion settings. This is where the findings that matter come from.

Our own site. We run the same audit against applepie.digital on every deploy, and we publish what we find, including what we have not fixed yet. It would be strange to sell this otherwise.

Not ready to talk yet? Start with the free BaFG self-check. It tells you whether the law reaches you at all, then walks you through the seven failures we found most often. Twenty minutes, nothing scanned, nothing stored.

Questions

Does the law apply to us?
It applies to companies with 10 or more employees, or more than €2 million in annual turnover or balance sheet total, that offer covered digital services — online shops, booking and appointment tools, online banking, telecoms, e-books, ticketing. Below both thresholds you are exempt as a micro-enterprise. If you are unsure where you sit, the audit answers that first.
We use a third-party booking widget. Is that our problem?
The obligation sits with you as the operator of the service, even when part of the interface comes from a supplier. We flag those parts separately in the report, so you know which items your own team can fix and which need a conversation with your vendor — with the specific failures written down, which is a far stronger position than “please make it accessible”.
Can we not just run a free checker ourselves?
You can, and you should — it takes five minutes. Automated tools reliably detect somewhere between 20% and 50% of accessibility problems. They cannot tell you whether a keyboard user can complete checkout, whether the focus order makes sense, or whether an error message is announced. That is the part we do by hand, and it is the part the law is actually about.
How long does an audit take?
The audit itself is a fixed scope with a fixed turnaround, agreed before we start. Remediation depends entirely on what we find — the report gives an hour estimate per item so you can plan or budget it without a second conversation.
Do you certify us as compliant?
No, and be careful with anyone who says they do. There is no certificate that makes a website legally compliant in Austria. We produce a technical audit against WCAG 2.1 AA, a remediation plan, and — once the work is done — an accessibility statement you can publish. What we do not do is issue legal assurances.
Not legal advice. This page describes technical work against a technical standard. Whether your organisation is covered, and what follows if it is, is a question for a qualified Austrian lawyer. Primary sources: Sozialministerium and WKO.